Spinoza's Concept of Substance and Attribute: A Reading of the Short Treatise

ABSTRACT

In the recent secondary literature on Ockham’s philosophy of mind, it has been debated whether Ockham proposed an externalist or an internalist view of the intentional contents of intuitive cognitions. It has also been debated whether Ockham only attributes intentional content to intuitive cognitions, or rather two different properties, i.e. a likeness and an intentional content. Intuitive cognitions can be roughly understood as perceptions. In this article I propose a different perspective for analysing both debates, that is, the perspective that concerns Ockham’s theory of reflexivity. Ockham defended the idea that one can reflexively cognize two different features of intuitive cognitions; namely, their similarity or likeness, and their intentional content. Ockham proposed different degrees and modes of reflexive cognition regarding these features.